Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-25-Speech-2-216"
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"en.20070925.30.2-216"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the statements that the Presidency has been making to this Parliament for a year would seem – if we were a parliament such as the British parliament or the United States parliament, for instance – like an offence not only against the truth but also against Parliament.
No, President-in-Office of the Council, I think that you have been misinformed by the apparatus and structure which is behind you at the moment, and which since 1994 has been adopting an unworthy and incomprehensible approach, for which the six-monthly Presidencies that follow one another are responsible, or manage to make themselves responsible!
In 1994 we were on the verge of winning. We lost by 8 votes, because 20 European countries which are now members of the European Union collaborated with each other and abstained. The universal moratorium could have been proclaimed throughout the world, had it not been for that disgrace, which we should not dismiss: 20 European abstentions, in 1994, with a Council that was fully and hypocritically complicit.
You, President-in-Office of the Council, also had the impudence to say in 1999 – according to all the European ambassadors we had won because there was a very large absolute majority – on the morning of the vote, a telegram arrived from Brussels telling us to withdraw. This was inexplicable! In 2003 the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, then occupying the Council Presidency, declared that because of a lack of agreement by the European Union, Italy was not taking forward the resolution on which we again had a majority. Now, the state of affairs is more shocking.
Do you understand, though, Mr Antunes? In which country could we tell a tall story like this? You say that 173 of 192 UN Member States have abolished the death penalty in fact and in law. All this is your immense exertion! You ought to have tabled a resolution in the 61st Assembly, the previous one, you ought to have tabled one at the beginning of this one, that is, yesterday, and already the news we have today from New York is of further postponements.
You also told another small or serious untruth: it is true that 95 countries have signed a declaration, and that on 28 December we, as the Italian Government, already had 85 signatories and what you have achieved we actually achieved together, namely only 11 more. So if you want to lose, go ahead, but it is a shame, we will do..."@en1
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